Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My theory is that as wealth inequality increases, so does outside tutoring, “enrichment”, private coaching, college consultants among parents with the means to pay. I grew up in Asia where all my friends had hours of tutoring on top of private school educations to make us more competitive for the limited spots in top universities. It’s interesting to see it as a more widespread phenomenon here now - but mostly in wealthy, urban areas where the perceived competition is greater.

I think this is driven by the immigrant culture more than wealth inequality. I am an immigrant myself, and I am surprised how blaise most non-immigrant families are about academic achievement. The only exception is sports.

Part of it is that those of us in the “immigrant culture” are not in fact immigrants, but know we are othered by “real Americans” who run institutions and that our race counts against us when it comes to high school and college admissions. So we have to supplement and try to be the best at, well, everything.

Anonymous wrote:lol at people using "immigrant" as code for asian when in reality the vast majority of immigrants in the us latin american, not asian. lat-ams do not supplement academics as a rule, except for the ones who are are of 95%+ European ancestry and came here with money and education. for every 1 mary chang or mary patel who calls herself an elite educated immigrant there are 200 maria garcias who are like "que?"

I am a white immigrant of European ancestry that you reference above and I am well aware who are majority of immigrants today. The fact remains that kids who are excelling academically and, later, professionally, have parents embracing "immigrant culture" that is fairly foreign to domesticated WASP families. Sometimes these kids are actual immigrants, sometimes their parents or grandparents are. But the culture is palpably different and it is gradually affecting WASPs as well. They are noticing that they getting displaced from their own elite institutions.